Twins was originally established to help Sri Lankan schools after the 2004 tsunami. The project was recognised as a ‘best practice’ example of relief in the Tsunami region by The Prince’s Trust. We twinned almost 200 schools and are now applying the same process to helping schools in Pakistan under the umbrella of the UK charity DIL Trust UK (registered charity no. 1122924).
Twins Pakistan is a project through which your school can twin with a school in Pakistan, both for mutual cultural exchange and to help that school in practical ways. Interaction might range from art competitions and pen-friendships, to exchanges of information relating to language, food, climate, environment and the arts. While building a direct relationship with the school, its teachers and its pupils, you can also help them to develop their facilities and resources. Over the long-term, you will be able to follow the development of projects that you have helped to make possible. This might include a new classroom or drinking water well. It might relate to a piece of educational or sports equipment. It might just be a case of seeing smiles on the faces of those whom you have helped.
If your school is prepared to twin with a Pakistani school, you will be asked to nominate a member of teaching staff as a point of contact. If you wish, your pupils can also elect a ‘Twins Committee’ with responsibility for maintaining communication with your twinned school and organising fundraising activities. Your Twins Committee can consist of a small number of senior pupils, a representative of each class or year, or any other formula that you consider to be most appropriate for your school. You will be notified of a key point of contact at your twinned Pakistani school and we will provide you with a route for remitting funds for your twinned school to support projects, purchases, etc. This will be managed by a local Twins Field Officer or the Twins Pakistan Manager on the ground.
Twins Pakistan will anyway try to match schools as closely as possible, with regard to size, pupils’ ages and any particular features or characteristics. However, we will also do our best to accommodate any preferences that you may have. If you have any such preferences please let us know in writing when you send in your form.
A little goes a long way, so fundraising at all levels will help and any money that your school raises will go directly to helping your twinned school and its immediate community. The way in which you raise funds will depend on your own imagination and initiative. Some suggestions might include sponsored walking, running, cycling, dress down days, private hire of school facilities, amateur dramatics productions, collections at sports matches and other events, jumble/car boot sales, discos, PTA events and straight-forward appeal funds. Parents should definitely be involved and local businesses can be asked to help too.
We will establish a dedicated page for your school and its twin on the website www.justgiving.com. Donations to this page can be enhanced with Gift Aid, provided that they are from qualifying U.K. tax-payers. We can also receive donations in cheque form and we will provide you with a Donation Docket for this purpose (We are unable to process Gift Aid on donations made by cheque).
It can be complicated getting non-cash donations, such as books, clothes, equipment etc, to local communities in Pakistan. Financial donations are therefore preferred, as they can be swiftly and easily translated into benefit on the ground. To be clear, cash is never handed out on the ground; all donations are carefully handled by the project’s on site Pakistan Manager and assisting team of field officers, who liaise with your twin school and buy approved items from approved suppliers. Accurate accounting records are maintained at all times.
No, definitely not! You may be a corporate entity, a group of work colleagues, a village committee, a registered charity, a quiz club or any other institution or group of people. The programme is based on the concept of schools twinning with schools and the vast majority of the parties involved are schools, but you don’t have to be one. If you are not a school but still wish to sponsor a school in Pakistan, please apply in the normal manner (as detailed later here). Just point out that you are not a school in an accompanying note and please forgive us for referring to ‘your school’, ‘twinning’, ‘pupils’, ‘teaching staff’ etc in this and other documents. We will know that you are not a school!
If your school is prepared to twin with a Pakistani school, please complete this attached form and
send it by post to the following address:
Twins Pakistan
c/o DIL Trust UK
P.O. Box 3457
Cockfosters
Barnet
EN5 9GN
United Kingdom
or as an email attachment to officeuk@dil.org
After twinning nearly 200 schools, Twins is now working with DIL Trust UK to establish operations in relation to Pakistan. We are very grateful to the first schools to become involved in this exciting new project.
